MAHMUDIYA, Iraq (AFP) - Forty-two people were killed in one of the bloodiest days since Iraq regained its sovereignty, as police suffered heavy losses in two separate incidents and clashes raged between US forces and insurgents.

In another blow to the fragile oil industry, saboteurs set ablaze pipelines in southern and northern Iraq, while the fates of two French journalists held hostage by a radical Islamist group remained uncertain.

Iraqi police and national guard, assisted by US forces, launched a major assault on the no-go zone of Latifyah, a bastion of the Sunni Muslim insurgency south of Baghdad, in the boldest offensive by the new government since it took power three months ago.

Twelve policemen were killed and five national guardsmen wounded in the raids that saw 200 hundred suspects arrested, an Iraqi national guard intelligence officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The officer was speaking from Mahmudiya, another town on the deadly stretch of road where foreigners, US forces and Iraqi police have often been targetted by insurgents.

Two French journalists held hostage by a radical Islamist group disappeared on August 20 while traveling the perilous route.

Violence also flared in the northern city of Kirkuk, where 17 people were killed and 36 wounded in a suicide car bombing, said Dr. Ridha Abdullah, head of the Kirkuk general hospital. Fourteen of the dead were policemen.

The car bomb went off in front of the police academy in Al-Ihtifalat (Celebrations) Square in the southwest of the city at 3:45 pm (1145 GMT), police said.

Kirkuk, with its ethnic mosaic of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, is a frequent target of roadside bombings and shootings by insurgents seeking to spark civil strife.

Also in northern Iraq, 13 Iraqis were killed and 53 civilians wounded as US forces and insurgents battled for six hours in Tall Afar, west of the main city of Mosul, medics said.

A battalion from the US Army's 2nd Infantry Division and a small Iraqi national guard attachment poured into the city at 8:00 am (0400 GMT) to hunt down a "terrorist cell" and detained a wanted individual, the military said.

"The city of Tall Afar has been a suspected haven for terrorists crossing into Iraq from Syria," it charged.

Insurgents hit a US helicopter with gunfire and two soldiers were wounded as the chopper made an emergency landing.

Columns of smoke filled the sky as insurgents lobbed mortar rounds and fired Kalashnikovs in response to fire from US armoured vehicles, warplanes and helicopter gunships, an AFP reporter said.

As the clashes intensified, an F-16 fighter jet dropped a large bomb near the city, the military said.

Soldiers also killed two insurgents after coming under rocket propelled grenade fire while guarding the downed Kiowa chopper, it said, adding that three Iraqi national guard soldiers were wounded in a separate incident.

US troops pulled out at 2:00 pm, with insurgents still hunkered down behind cars and in buildings waiting for a fresh assault.

"The sabotage damaged two parallel pipelines. The first pumps oil to the Harithah electrical plant and the second from the town of Nahr Omar to the Zubeir oil fields," South Oil Company chief executive officer Jabar Ali al-Luaibi told AFP.

"Exports will be affected but it's not immediately possible to quantify the losses," he said.

The Zubeir oil fields, together with Rumeilah North and South, have accounted for the vast majority of Iraq's post-war oil exports.

The attack on the pipeline near the southern port city of Basra came less than two days after saboteurs blew up a section of the key pipeline to Turkey, halting all exports from Iraq's northern oil fields.

A secondary pipeline carrying crude from al-Khabaz oilfield, west of Kirkuk, to the Baiji oil refinery was also hit Saturday afternoon, an oil official said.

Iraq's hostage crisis meanwhile took a new twist as the militant group holding the two French reporters claimed responsibility for an attack on a leading Iraqi politician and announced it had taken one of his bodyguards captive but that he was now dead.

In a video shown Saturday by the Arabic-language news channel Al-Jazeera, the Islamic Army in Iraq said the hostage died of his wounds, but his boss, Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi accused the extremists of assassinating him.

The militant group thought to be based mainly in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, has demanded Paris lift a controversial ban on headscarves in state schools to secure the release of French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot and their Syrian driver.

Hopes the journalists' release was imminent were deflated Friday night as Malbrunot's girlfriend Sylvie Cherpin told reporters that French foreign ministry officials had informed her the release could still take days.

Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV said another Islamist group had taken a Turk hostage and demanded his company cease its business activities in Iraq and threatened to behead him.

32
posted on 09/05/2004 5:47:46 PM PDT
by TexKat
(Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)

I wonder if this has something to do with Saddam Hussein's right-hand man, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, possible capture. There seems to be a sudden surge in violence across Iraq. I would think that Al-Douri being caught is a likely cause. Things had been real quiet over there recently.

34
posted on 09/05/2004 6:29:12 PM PDT
by rdl6989
(Kerry voted for the war before he voted against it?)

"The time line is a bit off. I would expect that most nuclear physicists have advanced degrees, requiring 6-10 years of college."

What if we wanted that guy and he was willing to come over to us. He was worried that if he did his family would be killed. So, he just gets "kille" and we get him and put him somewhere in the US under an assumed name. Works for me.

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